Jeff Vrabel: Calling from a concert is soooo five years ago

Thursday

Jul 26, 2007 at 12:01 AMJul 26, 2007 at 7:06 AM

Columnist Jeff Vrabel suggests text messaging instead.

Jeff Vrabel

If you're like me, you enjoy a good rock concert every now and again - although if you're also like me, you're aging with what appears to be an unusually increasing speed, your hair is turning a shade of gray that people say is "distinguishing" because people lie to you so you do nice things for them, you can't really stand crowds, you're weary of the post-show traffic, you wonder how many child-labor laws are being broken by whoever hires the parking lot attendants, you've spent time calculating how much money you've graciously donated to Ticketmaster over the course of your lifetime, you can't believe you're paying $9 for a Bud Flipping Light, you forgot your earplugs and you wish all those other people would stop smoking the marijuana so much, damn kids, that's a gateway drug!

But for as many beefs as I have with the American concertgoing public, which include - but are not limited to - stepping on my feet on its way to the bathroom and continuing to pay actual money to see Kenny Chesney, I'd like to focus on just one today: cellular phones, or, as the kids call them, iPods. Wait, no, cell phones. Damn thing. Where are my reading glasses?

Let me explain: Yes, I realize that cell phones are very popular, and yes, I realize that they have attractive glowing lights, and yes, I realize I sound like I just need a tall cold glass of prune juice, a nap and my cholesterol meds, but I think I speak for everyone who has ever been called from a concert when I say: WHEN YOU CALL ME, I CANNOT HEAR A DAMNED THING THAT IS GOING ON.

If you have family or friends who spend a lot of time at concerts - or, to be fair, similarly loud pursuits, such as NASCAR races, space shuttle launches or recent baseball games at Wrigley, which is still weird to type - you probably know the drill when you answer such a call, when you're greeted by warped, distorted static at a decibel level high enough to reorient the hemispheres in your brain, mixed in with an occasional accidental burst of crowd noise and someone screaming at you with a volume and liveliness that would suggest they're trying to talk you out of jumping off of a very tall bridge. I am not sure what you people who do the calling think it sounds like, but let me assure you like it sounds not like you, or music, or anything, but pretty much like a squirrel traveling backwards through a garbage disposal.

Allow me to demonstrate, using a very creative fake-script comic device:

Luckily for us cell phoned masses, such chaos can now be a thing of the past, as we now have texting, which is a considerably more convenient way to communicate at a show, and by "considerably more" I mean "not at all, unless you're versed in typing messages in a convoluted linguistic fashion that couldn't make less sense if it was Farsi." (Note: the preceding paragraph does not apply to anyone under the age of 18, who can text with what appear to be hands made out of lightning whose motion cannot be processed by the human eye. Tiny young people, I beg you: What is your secret? Is it those energy drinks? Is it?) Text messages are a far more effective, quiet and neighborly way to get your point across, especially if that point is "Get me a beer" or "Why am I texting you instead of watching the show?" So please, to anyone moved to call me from a show in the future, I urge you to text instead. It saves us both time, and I can read it without spending too much time away from my mint julep.

Jeff Vrabel is a freelance writer who's been singing "Mmmbop" in his head ever since writing that sentence. He can be reached at www.jeffvrabel.com.